How Job Mobility Helps You Retain Employees

How Job Mobility Helps You Retain Employees

Employee turnover costs money. The time and energy you invested into a departing employee now become another business's gain. By putting an employee retention plan in place, you'll get the rewards of that hard work, not your competitor.

One of the best ways to motivate employees to stay is to provide job mobility for your top team members. Here are a few reasons that promoting employees from within can boost your employee retention.

You're Making an Investment

According to a study conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management, employees who are promoted within three years of being hired are 70 percent likely to stay. Without a promotion, employees are only 36 percent likely to still be around by year five.

Promoting from within shows your employees that when you hire and train an employee, you're making an investment. This isn't just an investment in your company's future bottom line, but you also demonstrate that you're also interested in making sure your employees learn and grow in their chosen careers.

But this investment isn't just about a job promotion. You can also provide training and education opportunities that help employees get the skills they need. You might even help employees get certified, which not only helps their careers, but gives you a more credentialed staff.

You're Offering a Future

When you promote an employee, it goes beyond motivating that worker to stay. Other team members note the promotion and see that they, too, have a future with the company. If they're considering the next move in their careers, they might first look around at opportunities with your company, knowing you often promote from within.

Seeing that future, you may find that employees are taking extra initiative to learn more about your company and find a way to move up that ladder. Some could even have an eye on management and attend leadership training or get education on their own. The result is a more engaged team, and more engagement equals higher productivity levels .

You Attract the Right People

Job interviewers often ask the question , "Where do you see yourself in five years?" If you're one of those interviewers, what do you hope to hear in response? Ideal candidates will mention career aspirations. They'll want to turn the experience they have into future opportunities. An entry-level I.T. help desk employee may want to move up to supervisor or even shift to the server group, for instance.

Obviously, your organization can only promote employees to the opportunities you have available. But by being able to honestly say you promote from within, you'll attract people who want to stay with the same company for a large chunk of their careers, rather than those who are simply there to gain experience before moving on.

You Emphasize Soft Skills

There's plenty of talk about soft versus hard skills. The term "hard skills" refers to the very specialized knowledge a person brings to a job. Knowing Microsoft Office and having database management experience are hard skills. These are typically skills that can be learned, whether through formal education or while on the job.

But in recent years, the value of soft skills has taken priority for many hiring managers. If you hire with soft skills in mind, you get an employee with the flexibility necessary to progress up the career ladder. A computer programmer who has great interpersonal skills could someday be the perfect person to be the IT manager on your leadership team. Soft skills like a strong work ethic, decisiveness, and organization can't be taught, but they translate well to a wide range of jobs.

You Can Craft a Succession Plan

Change can happen without warning. You may start a year with a sales manager, only to find by the end of it, that person is gone. Even with two weeks' notice, finding a replacement for a hard-to-replace upper-level position can take time.

By investing in your existing employees, you have people in place who can step into those positions. Granted, you might have to put a little time into training them, but the knowledge they've gained in their previous position will make it far easier to get them up to speed than if you brought somebody in from outside.

Express Pros specializes in helping businesses find the right candidates for every open position. We can help your team not only track down skilled, loyal professionals, but come up with a long-term plan to create an engaged, upwardly mobile team. Contact us at (615) 441-8898 to find out how we can help you boost your employee engagement.